No-bid contract to cost Orlando taxpayers millions

5-year contract to run, overhaul technology in city departments

Orlando is catching heat in the wake of a no-bid contract that's costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

On top of that, the contract was signed during a trip to Las Vegas for eight city staffers, a trip that was funded by taxpayers.

Rebecca Sutton, Orlando's chief financial officer, was shown last month getting applause from attendees at a conference in Las Vegas sponsored by the software company called Workday. This came after she signed a five-year contract hiring the company to overhaul and run the technology for the city's human resources, personnel, finance and purchasing departments.

However, the contract was not put out to bid, meaning no company other than Workday was given a chance to compete for a contract that will have Orlando taxpayers shelling out nearly $6 million this year and $3 million more through 2017, a cost of almost $8.7 million.

Mayor Buddy Dyer said his staff, after extensive research, determined that Workday was the only company that could handle the job.

"Staff determined that there was really only one vendor that had the product that we wanted," said Dyer.

Dyer also said he hasn't heard any company say they could do the same as Workday.

Eran Golstein is a Maitland software consultant, who has bid on million dollar projects, including one for Seminole County government. He said the city's no-bid contract and assertions that only one company was qualified is ridiculous.

"This is kind of suspicious to me," said Goldstein. "There are a lot of companies that can provide this kind of service. And there are many other technologies that can be addressed for this kind of project."

Sutton signed the agreement with Workday but did not travel alone.

In all, eight staff members spent four days in Las Vegas at a taxpayer expense of more than $24,000.

Dyer referred several questions directly to the city's chief financial officer, but according to a spokeswoman, she is out of town and unavailable for comment.

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